After the Song and Dance
by Diva Actress
Summary: What happens after the curtain falls, or the movie ends. Please read and review. Criticism gladly accepted.
1. Chapter 1

I moved into the loft apartment with Roger the week I dropped out of Brown. Benny joined us a few months later once he had graduated. Me? I just couldn't stick it out. I had known Roger from high school; he was the popular, "rock star" guy, and I was simply the AV geek who wished that he could turn invisible. The only way I actually knew him was because he saved me from Blake Jennison, the school bully, and we started talking. I filmed his first "gig" for him, it was 1989, and he, along with his band, had been booked to perform at that year's prom. Our senior prom. They got paid about 20 bucks each to perform there, and Roger paid me about six dollars for a copy of the tape. I still have it somewhere too.

Collins came and joined our "family" not two weeks after Benny. We needed another roommate to help pay the rent. He fitted in well with our haven for the abnormal. I have yet to meet anyone as smart as he was.

Roger met April after a show one night at CBGBs, and originally thought she was just some over-obsessed fan. Turns out, she had been a waitress at the restaurant that the Well Hungarians went to for breakfast after each night of performing. She came to live with us, well, live with Roger really. April introduced Roger to The Man, and then she introduced him to drugs. After about two months, Roger was a junkie, and April was almost as addictive to him as drugs. Then Christmas rolls around. April finds out that she has AIDS and decided to kill herself rather than take medication and die slowly. Before slitting her wrists, she left Roger the morbid note of his having AIDS in her brilliant red lipstick on the mirror. It tore Roger apart. He got tested, and it turned out that what she had written was true. My best friend was HIV positive.

We met Maureen not long after that night. And I was practically putty at her feet. Looking back, it seems pathetic to the point of silly. We dated.

He got clean after that, and that was a battle Collins and I went through with him, Benny had met Allison, and moved in with her. Soon after they moved in together, he proposed. Roger went through with-drawls and side-effects from the AZT. It was a trying time, and none of us were left without battle scars; we had both visible and invisible. Roger would always live with his disease, and the chance of doing drugs again. Maureen was a fighter, and she spent many a night standing in front of the door arguing with Roger about his having no need for "Those shots of poison that eventually would kill him," and Roger would physically shove her out of the way. He almost broke her arm once. Collins was really the only one that was strong enough to physically retain Roger. Me, I tried, and most of the time, got thrown aside too.

After Roger was clean for a few months, Collins decided that his strength was no longer needed, and went to MIT. Maureen and I were left alone with him. After that Roger didn't leave the loft.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. Two "Take Me or Leave Me"

That was the same year that Maureen did her first protest, on Christmas day. That night, Roger left the loft for the first seven months. That was the day that Mimi entered Roger's life. Mimi was probably more what got him out than Maureen's protest.

That night, I was completely and utterly alone at the Life Café. Everyone had someone else to celebrate with. Collins had Angel; Maureen had Joanne, even if they were fighting; and Roger had Mimi. I was alone.

Then, the next day, the day after Christmas, the day after Maureen's protest, the day after Roger met Mimi, and Collins met Angel; Benny kicked us out on the street. For awhile we stayed at Joanne's, or Angel's. Then New Year's Eve rolled around…we had a master plan devised by then. According to Joanne, we would be squatters, or rather, unauthorized individuals living in an apartment without paying the rent. HAPPY NEW YEAR! Benny came around, said that we could move in again, rent free. I gave him my check, well, my first advance from Buzzline. The artists were back in their flat, and they were going to pay the rent too. Or I was anyway.

Maureen and Joanne continued to be an on-again, off-again couple. Their biggest fight was on Valentine's Day…of all days. I don't know who or what started it this time, but it happened and they're a stronger couple because of it.

Roger and Mimi had their fair share of arguments too. Most of those Roger started; he just had trust issues after what happened with April. Most of them they worked through, until Benny started to get involved…it all got a lot worse after that.

Angel and Collins seemed to be the only ones who could have an effortless relationship. Maybe it was because they knew that they had the least amount of time together. Or maybe Angel really was magic. Whatever the reason, their relationship gave hope to the others.

And me? I remained alone. Married to my work.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. Three "How Did We Get Here"

Angel's health started to deteriorate. Slowly at first, but the disease rapidly took her health. She died a few days before Halloween. Mimi and Collins were the hardest ones hit, thou I think that we all felt like we were missing a part of ourselves. Angel was buried on Halloween, her favorite holiday. Not long after, Roger left for who knows where, and Maureen and Joanne seemed to have their last meeting their fight was so big.

I'm not certain where Collins went after that. All I know is that he got out of the city for awhile.

I stayed, and hid behind my camera. Benny sent Mimi to rehab; they appeared to be having an affair. Eventually Mimi escaped the clinic, and she didn't return. I think that's what brought everyone back together. Roger returned, and Maureen and Joanne made up. Even Collins came back to the city. No one it seems had seen her. Not The Man, none of her co-workers, or friends. She hadn't been picking up her AZT. She had been living on the streets.

Maureen and Joanne were the ones to find her. Mimi had been curled up on a park bench, in the freezing cold. When she was brought to the loft, she was basically dead. For awhile there, I think that she was, then she came back saying that she had seen Angel, and Angel told her that it wasn't her time, and that if she could just listen to Roger's song, she'd know just where she was meant to be.

That night, I showed my first of many films that I would never even show to the scum who worked at Buzzline. No Day But Today was a video memory of my family. Of the good times and the bad that I could never share with anyone outside of our little world. Oh sure, I pieced together some footage for Buzzline from that film, but I could never show them the entire footage. It is too personal, and too important to trade for a meager three grand. Our lives are worth more than that.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch. Four "Living in America"

Mimi miraculously survived that night, and the night to follow. She recovered as much as she possibly could. It was Collins now that everyone was worried about. I knew he wasn't taking his AZT, and I knew that his health was not the greatest. He died on November 5th, 1999. A little more than three years after Angel. How he survived that long without her, I haven't the faintest idea.

Mimi continued to live, though not long after Collins' death, she had full-blown AIDS. As soon as she could no longer take AZT, Roger quit too. Somehow, they died not three days apart from each other.

Benny and Allison got a divorce. Benny is still alive, somewhere. He calls every now and again. Last I heard from him, he was dating a woman named Stacy, and they were pretty serious.

Maureen and Joanne committed to each other on January 6th, 2001. They've been together ever since. I still see them sometimes, but we never really hang out anymore. Maureen now performs on Broadway, and I guess is making quite the name for herself. Joanne now has her own firm. Together they have a little girl named Sadie that they adopted. Sadie takes after Roger of all people, she is the lead singer in a band that she started with two of her friends, they named it Silence, an idea given to her by Roger's second band Mute. The two never even had the chance to meet.

I am still here. In 2001 I met Elizabeth Paige Smith. We dated for two and a half years before I proposed. Together we live in the loft with our three children, Mary, Thomas, and Susan. Elizabeth works fulltime as at NYU as a professor of History. Mary is nine years old and wants to be an author. Thomas is five and dreams of becoming a fireman. Little Susan is three, and wants nothing more than a pink tutu for her birthday. This Christmas we got a surprise. Elizabeth is pregnant. She is now about three months along, and we have two names already picked out; Roger if it is a boy and Angela if it is a girl.

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Well, that's all. I wish more people would've reviewed, but such is life. Hope you enjoyed it. ~Diva


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